Stellaris 3-Planet Tall Strategy Guide (3.0)

Do you hate intense micro? Do you like min-maxing? Do you hate having to colonize anything and everything just to be on par with the AI? Do you wish you could just roll over the AI with science like in the Civilization series?

Well, my 3 Planet Guide is just the right thing for you!

Preface

Hello all! This build I have made is something I'd been using since 1.8 that I finally was able to bring into the current patch with the new planet mechanics. With this build, you can expect to have the following by 2350:

• 300-500k Fleet power
  
• Massive technological advantage (even on Grand Admiral)
  
• A partially built Megastructure (if desired)

The main strategy of this build is to stay under admin cap in order to maximize efficiency, and then building an extreme amount of research labs on two planets and using the third for a resource feeder. After following the Synthetic Ascension path and hitting repeatable technologies, you can then widen out (usually by 2300) and start building large amounts of alloy foundries on new planets. All of this is done without relying on Habitats. You can then build any kind of fleet that you desire and build any Megastructure you choose.

The main drawback of this strategy is that you are very weak in the early game, and will most likely be wiped out by anybody who seriously attacks you before 2250 if playing on higher difficulties. If you spawn next to a purifier type empire (Devouring Swarm, Fanatical Purifier or Determined Exterminator) or advanced AI, you should probably restart your game.

The allure of this build is, of course, that you only have to manage three planets in the early game, and you don't even have to widen out that much to win the game (I usually don't have more than 10 planets by the end). Having less planets means less micro for you and better late game performance. It also focuses on high level leaders, since you generally have the same leaders/ruler you start the game with because of all the life increasing techs, and you can synthetically ascend super early (by 2260 in my latest game).

As a final note, this build is more of a Crisis-fighting/score victory/Galactic Custodian kind of empire, and is not optimal if you wish to purge the filthy xeno.

Now, on to the guide!


**This build is tested with vanilla galaxy generation settings and NO GAMEPLAY MODS**

**THIS GUIDE ASSUMES YOU OWN ALL DLC**

What's changed in 3.0?

3.0 has brought massive changes to how buildings are acquired, how pops grow and how districts work. This has fundamentally altered a few things about gameplay, but fear not; Things are arguably better for tall builds in the long run, now that large empires have been nerfed and pop growth is no longer quite so exponential.

-Building slots now unlocked via City Districts, meaning you can be proactive with Labs

-You now get a negative growth modifier for your entire empire if you have over X amount of pops. Using this build, we will generally stay below that threshold.

-Industrial Districts have arrived, meaning you can save slots on your feeder world for more Refineries

-Dictatorial authority now has a -10% penalty to going over admin cap, meaning you can slightly dip over without getting punished quite as hard.

-Jobs produce more resources, but require more upkeep as well. You'll be purchasing minerals at least a few times during your run

-Boosting your planets growth with 1k food is a thing of the past (Since 2.8 I believe), so you can now use excess food to help float your economy

-Labs and other main resource buildings now give 2/4/6 jobs per upgrade level, as opposed to 2/5/8 jobs in previous versions

-Nebula Refineries now give +1 Exotic Gases after researching the gas tech, which can be a huge help.


All in all, this makes the build a bit more difficult to get off the ground, but once things really take off, the distance between this build and the GA AI's is quite staggering. Whether or not that's because the AI are very bad at playing the game currently, or this build is very strong, is something I'm not quite sure of yet.

Due to the all the changes with pop growth, we won't usually have as many pops in our empire as in previous versions, and as such, the build unfortunately does have less top end output as before. However, this is offset by the aforementioned AI's being bad at the game, so things work out fine in the end.

Empire Setup

For this build, research is the name of the game, so we need to maximize the research generated by our pops and our growth speed. For our ethics we need:

Fanatic Materialist
-20% Robot upkeep
+10% Research speed

Pacifist
-15% Empire sprawl from pops
+5 Stability

Technocracy
Science director jobs. Researchers generate unity.

Effficient Bureaucracy
+10% Admin cap

Origin:
Mechanist
Start with Powered Exoskeletons technology and 8 Robot pops. -5% Robot upkeep. 2x chance for Robot technology to appear.


This combination of ethics and civics gives you -25% Robot upkeep, something very nice when your whole population becomes Robots. The extra admin cap will let you grab a few extra systems in the early game (maybe even a choke point you desperately need) without going over cap. The stability also helps when you inevitably dip into low stability (your clerks will be the only thing generating extra amenities) and if things go swimmingly, you will never have to build and additional Administrative building.

Using the Mechanist origin will give you 8 Robot pops to start with (with 3 of them being additional pops), and one less technology to research. It also doubles the chance for Droids and Synthetics to appear, speeding you along your path to ascension. Technocracy helps you fly through tradition trees without having to focus on Autocthon Monuments.

As for authority, you want to pick Dictatorial or Imperial. This gives you access to Agendas, and particularly the +10% Research speed buff. the -10% penalty for going over the cap is great as well.

The only real downside to this ethics combination is being unable to go to war over territory in the late game against normal empires, as recent changes will allow you to claim the systems of Gestalt Consciousness empires. You can still build a Colossus and use it to pacify worlds during other types of war, effectively destroying the planet.


For your species, you will want the following:

Rapid Breeders
+10% Growth speed

Intelligent
+10% All research output

Natural Engineers
+15% Engineering research output

Repugnant
-20% Amenities from jobs

Deviants
-15% Governing ethics attraction


Growth is still extremely important in 3.0, so we want the fastest growing pops as possible with Rapid Breeders. Intelligent is also a no-brainer, since we want to squeeze out as much research as possible.

Repugnant and Deviants have the least downsides of any negative traits, and they completely disappear as soon as you synthetically ascend. Repugnant is a new choice here since Robots can now work Clerk jobs from the start, meaning your species will never have to working Amenity jobs anyway. Not only that, but Robot pops have a massive attraction to the Materialist faction, so ethics will never be an issue in the case of Deviant.

For Robomodding, you want Mass-Produced first, followed by Durable and Double-Jointed. When you have enough points, and your species is ascended, you can add Logic Engines to both of your Robotic species.

Traditions/Perks

Traditions are very important since we want to synthetically ascend as quickly as possible, so we want to be flying through the best trees and getting the perks that we need.

Expansion - Discovery - Prosperity - Domination - Supremacy

Expansion is always the best to take first, giving us quicker colonization, growth speed and a free pop. The extra admin cap is also very useful. Discovery is mostly taken for the research speed bonus and upkeep reduction, which is very important.

Since we aren't spamming quite as many City Districts, we will need Clerk jobs badly. Prosperity is up before Domination in this build. Supremacy comes in towards the late game to make our fleets just that much more potent.



As for Ascension Perks, you want the following:

Technological Ascendancy - The Flesh is Weak - Synthetic Evolution - Arcology Project

After you synthetically ascend, you will want to start work converting your Tech world into an Ecumenopolis. With the way growth is now, you will need the massive Alloy and Consumer Goods production it provides in order to keep things afloat in the late game.

After Arcology Project, you can realistically do what you wish. My preference is to take Executive Vigor and Galactic Force Projection, giving us way more fleet and edict capacity, and save the rest of my Unity for the very powerful Unity Ambitions, but feel free to do what you wish!

Tech Path

Since technology is semi random in Stellaris, the best thing you can realistically do is to increase research alternatives and grab prerequisites in order to get the technologies you want.

The only real tech path we need to follow is:

Planetary Unification - Colonial Centralization - Droids - Synthetics - Synthetic Personality Matrix


These two Society and three Engineering technologies are the ones we need to become perfect machines. In order to minimize time in getting these techs, you want to take any technology that increases base research (this applies to other fields as well) and when those are not available, take the technologies that take the least amount of time, in order to reshuffle the pool.

Some technologies to look out for are:

• Growth Technology
  
• Research Technology
  
• Statecraft Technology
  
• Sensor Technology (For Black Hole Observatory)
  
• Robot Technology (Extra Mod Points)

*Note in 3.0 that the Colonial Bureaucracy and Galactic Bureaucracy technologies, both Statecraft technologies, are extremely important to rush if you do not want to go over admin cap.

Early Game

To start things off, I usually restart my game until I get the Scientific Leap agenda, giving us 10% Research speed. This might seem trivial to some, but this build is focused around min maxing in the early game.


Before you unpause the game, you want to go into your policies and switch your Trade Policy to Consumer Benefits and Economic Policy to Civilian Economy. Doing this will increase your population growth and generation of Consumer Goods, and the less Civilian Industries you have to build, the better. Alloys will not be a concern until the mid game. Then, go into your species tab and change your main species rights to Academic Privilege.

Once you start unlocking your building slots, you want to fill the vast majority of them with Research Labs. the build order for your 3 planets are as follows:

First Planet: Research Lab - City District - Research Lab
After this point, I usually fill the planet with labs, with the only other buildings being an Energy Nexus and a Research Institute. You'll want as many City Districts as you need building slots, and you'll want to fill the rest up with Generator Districts. The Administrative Office can be upgraded as needed.

Second Planet: Robotic Assembly Plant - Autocthon Monument - Research Lab
This planet will be pretty much the same as the first, but with a Research upkeep reduction, so prioritize upgrading on this planet first. I mostly just spam City Districts and build up the labs. Energy Nexus and Research Institute included.

Third Planet: Robotic Assembly Plant - Industrial District - Industrial District - Civilian Industries
Our resource planet, this one will be used to sustain the other two planets. After the first two districts, you want to balance City and Industrial Districts in order to have enough building slots for refineries.

For colony designations, you want Tech world for your tech world and Industrial World for your feeder world.

As for general district guidelines, you can't just spam Generator Districts like we used to. With the changes to upkeep, you will absolutely need to build a few Mining Districts in order to keep from buying minerals all the time. In the mid game, this gets quite a bit worse, with Minerals being almost a premium. Be aware and be prepared.

Agriculture Districts are useless to build since Hydroponics Farms on starbases give a whopping 10 food each now, up from 3, modifiable by technology. So you will be good!

As a final note, Set make sure your Refugee Policy is set to Not Allowed and don't engage in migration treaties with the AI. You don't want their sub-par pops in your empire, and the treaty costs precious influence. I would suggest refraining from doing anything diplomatically at all with any AI except maybe a commercial pact with a Megacorp. Keep your foreign policy on Expansionist until your third colony is finished settling.

Now that we have all that out of the way, we can unpause the game!




First Colony down in 2203. I tend to rush my colonies quite a bit faster in the new patch since we can immediately get started on Robo plants now.



Second colony down in 2205. We've ran into Amoebas so far, but so far uneventful



Colonies are all finished settling! Now we can switch to Isolationist stance, giving us more admin cap and Unity. Also, make sure you change your worlds over to the correct designations.



I also activate the Peace Festivals edict to help with our inevitable low stability. This, combined with conservative use of Distribute Luxury Goods, will ensure you might not even go into the negative.



Finally rolled the Colonial Bureaucracy tech. I usually get it earlier than this in previous runs, and we are about to go over cap, so luckily I got it when I did.

Other than that, things are very, very quiet in the galaxy so far. We've rolled the Yuht Empire, which has an amazing home system with tons of valuable resources.



This is the latest I've ever got this technology in any game I've ever played. My poor robots have had to run around naked until now.

Fortunately, things are going great otherwise. Our tech speed is fantastic, and we've assigned some scientists to Assist Research on both our tech planets to make it even faster.



First AI contact! A Fallen Empire, which means we don't have to care about them encroaching on our territory.



Found the Omnicodex, which I won't be using until after we ascend.



Cyborgs in 2238! This is a pretty average time to get it, but with how bad my tech rolls have been so far, I wasn't so sure I'd make it. I also change my edict from Peace Festivals over to Research Subsidies at this point.



Reformed my government soon after. Functional Architecture has been upgraded to give +1 Building slot in addition to its now more valuable upkeep reduction, so its a great pickup now



Finished the Yuht chain in 2245. The Cryo Core isn't a very useful relic here, but the gases and research from the home system are amazing.



We've finally met a real AI! a Spiritualist empire that is nowhere near our borders, so they are of no concern. Try to get on friendly terms with AI's while avoiding too many agreements; this will be important for Migration Treaties in the mid game.



Ascension in 2260! By far the fastest in any of my games ever. You'll immediately notice that your robot build speed won't be exactly as fast as it was in previous versions, so you'll want to get Migration Treaties open to Assimilate pops and open up your Refugee Policy in order to get even more free pops occasionally.

Early Game Pt. 2

Yet another first, the Gray Tempest is unleashed upon the galaxy in 2272. This is, of course, extremely early and we have no way of dealing with this right now, and neither does the AI. We also have a wormhole in our territory, making all of this very ominous.



In my game, I took GFP before Arcology Project, but you definitely want to grab it before.



It is 2285, and we've hit the 3k research mark. Now that we've started hitting repeatable technologies, it's time to widen out to the planets in our borders. We will be making 3 Forge Worlds and 1 Tech World, with a nice Relic World we found serving as said Tech World.

Mid Game

Now that we have all the non repeatable technologies, we can widen out. Our focus will be to produce as much alloys as possible in order to get a fleet going. I also switch from Civilian Economy to Militarized Economy to get those alloys flowing.

The buildings on these planets aren't that important. You are mostly just trying to feed your alloy production at this point. Build as needed.



By 2310, we already are up to +185 alloys a month and have a 46k fleet.

I've started moving some of my technicians over to the Forge Worlds in order to help with alloys, since you will usually have an abundance of energy initially.



2320 and we have a 124k fleet. Our alloy production has remained stable mostly due to me not being able to get Migration Treaties and robot growth being slow



Finally our Ecumenopolis. You can definitely get one out much earlier than I did, and can therefore theoretically do much better than this run. The Foundry Arcologies will hugely boost your Alloy production. I've also finally got some Migration Treaties going, so our pop growth will speed up from here.



2330. We have over 200k of fleet power and more than enough Unity to keep multiple ambitions active at once. Also hit the 4k research mark. All of the AI's have been trying to buddy up to me since they are all laughably pathetic now.



2340. 400k+ fleet. Even the Fallen Empires are starting to be considered Equivalent. We're also at +7/+8 in many repeatable technologies.



We have arrived at the end date of this guide. 2350, and we have well over 450k fleet power, which will allow us to curbstomp anything in the galaxy. We also have a Juggernaut in production. Continuing down this path with more planets + continued micro could easily have you going toe to toe with a 5x crisis by 2450.

Late Game

Now that we have everything we've set out to accomplish, there's a couple of paths you can take now.

You can simply wait out the game and at this rate, you will overtake the FE's in score and eventually win a score victory. You can also become a Galactic Custodian and simply beat up the crisis for the rest of the AI's, or form the FIRST GALACTIC EMPIRE!!! Building Megastructures is also an option.

Shifting your ethics is another option if you do wish to conquer the galaxy. You may find it difficult as synths have a massive draw towards the materialist faction, but it is an option. Due to recent changes, you can now capture the worlds of Gestalt Consciousness empires, so that's always nice.

What I personally like to do is insult the FE's until they declare war on me, then I pacify their homeworld, which effectively eliminates them from the game. You could also get into a federation and hope they feel like they're in a warlike mood.

You also don't have to stop at 5 traditions trees. Nothing is stopping you from grabbing some more ascension perks and trees, since you will have so much extra unity.


As a final note, I'll show you my optimal ship setup for this build:


This corvette will penetrate through almost everything and go directly for the hull. Very effective against FE's who can't hit small targets as well, and have massive shields.


This battleship, along with the artillery AI, is a long range death platform. Having this thing following behind your corvette swarm has caused FE fleet to vanish in seconds. Be sure to include a Titan in your fleet for the ship aura.

Conclusion

After reading all of this, I hope I have shown people that the tall build is alive and well, and you don't need to resort to massive expansion and territory grabbing in order to be a powerful empire. Thank you all for reading, and I hope it helps someone!

Q/A

Q: Why do you care so much about staying under admin cap?
A: When you have a small empire with a small amount of territory, being too far over cap can really hurt you. More importantly, it helps with repeatable technologies, which cost a lot more than regular tech.

Q: My amenities are so low, how is this build possible?
A: Stabilty is really the only thing that matters, and as long as you keep it above 49%, you're generally good. Living standards and any kind of Happiness bonus can offset this, or if you are really hurting due to an unfortunate event, you can always Distribute Luxury Goods.

Q: I got destroyed in the early game, how do you survive?
A: While there is enough alloys being generated to keep a good bastion and small fleet active, you generally can't hold off a full scale attack until the 2250's. Try to keep good relations with empires until that time when the technology on your starbases makes them quite formidable to the AI.

Why don't you use the Galactic Community to get beneficial resolutions?
A: The GC is far too random in order to rely on for any semblance of a strategy, and with the way we play our build, we usually don't have the diplomatic weight to really do anything until the late mid game.

Q: What happened to the Gray Tempest?
A: Good question. I went to observer mode to check it out and it was the more obvious scenario: They were simply destroying everyone else and never came near my wormhole.

Q: You said it was unmodded, why do you have mods?
A: I have an assortment of cosmetic mods that I can't disable unless I want to remake 30+ empires. None of them affect gameplay.

Q: How does this build stand up to Glavius and StarNet AI?
A: Very well, in fact. You will still have the same problem of being very weak in the early game, but you will always be much farther ahead by 2350. StarNet is notably better at keeping up than Glavius, however, and will definitely give you a run for your money.

Q: How are you supposed to win if you are a Pacifist?
A: As said at the beginning of the guide, this build is more of a crisis fighting and score victory type, and is unsuited for a militarized playthrough.

Q: How do you shift your ethics away from Pacifist?
A: The best way to do this is to use your now large diplomatic weight to become a member of the council, shrink that council down, and then become the custodian. If you can then get the resolution passed to form the galactic imperium, you will shift to Fanatic Authoritarian and lose your pacifist ethos.

Q: You said you we would be able to take Militarist in the comments, what gives!?
A: Testing with Militarist ethos proved deceptively difficult. Keeping the militarist faction happy was nearly impossible and the loss of resources due to low stability/happiness was enough to crash my economy a couple of times. I will be testing with Xenophobe ethics soon to see if that is more viable.

[Kaiser Waffle]

Yeah i still go back to this guide and have been for a long time now but its deffinetly outdated now

[MissingTarget]

This guide is no longer correct as you cannot select the flesh is weak and then take Synthetic Evolution as it is now either or... Which sucks since I was following the guide up to that point kind of a bummer that I can now no longer turn my race into robots.

[NK77]

Hey there ! Any upcoming update ? Maybe for 3.7 ? I saw some interesting things involving spiritualist megacorps. Anyway, I hope you're doing well, your guide will remain my favorite one.

[GiornoGiovanna]

Hey again @Rord64, followed the guide and did pretty well before the 3.6 update, did you see the changes? I guess they are so deep for the tall style, hoping you come soon with an update, btw I´m on the edge of cyborgs or synths

[Rord64]

@GiornoGiovanna, see my comments.

[GiornoGiovanna]

Hello! I´m playing back since a while, has anyone used this guide in the 3.5? I truly hate the micro on 50+ planets, so I need badly something like this, I like to play on a small land, I don´t mind to micro up to 10-12 planets, no more

[Rord64]

A lot of what this guide set out to do (stay under admin cap) is now next to impossible with how the new system is. Even with all the changes, following the basic skeleton of this guide will still net you ascension around the same time, if not earlier due to the change in when you can build research buildings. Will hopefully be back early next year once my program is complete.

[B4K1]

Yep loved this, hope there's something coming soon :)

[Waylander86]

Any word on an update for the guide? I've been using the guide for years and would love to see it updated!

[MantleGen]

Used parts of this guide for a..... well let's call it noobish try of machine empire tech rush. Still trying to sort things out, but got a 750 tech at 2232, so far my highest. But there's space for improvement ig.